Sony MZ-N510CK NetMD Walkman/Recorder with Car Kit

• Stores more than five hours of music on an 80-minute minidisc; speedy USB connection minimizes recording time
• Compatible with MP3, WMA, and WAV music files as well as with the pressplay.com online music subscription service
• Bundled software helps you organize your music by artist, song, style, or tempo
• Bookmark function lets you "mark" or program your favorite songs on the disc in real time during playback
• Includes a remote control, AC adapter, and car-kit accessories; offers up to 56 hours of playback from a single AA battery

Great product. I wish I had discovered minidisc technology years ago. I purchase this for one reason (descrete, portable recording), but ended up using it mostly for another reason (music playback)

It's not perfect. I wish it had the AM/FM turer, but I was not willing to pay the $70 extra for the model with the tuner. I would also have been nice to record off a mike, but it has a line input and you can run your mike(s) thru a mixer if you really need to record "live".

Recordings made thru the line-input cannot be uploaded to your computer either.

But what it does it does very, very well. A single 80 min disc can hold (at maximum compression) well over 5 hours of music! It only needs a single AA cell, and that lasts for over 50 hours on playback. Well worth the money.

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TWO YEAR UPDATE:

After two years of use, I love it more and hate it less.

It is worked WIHOUT FAIL on daily use. I can't say this about most of my electronic gear. I use it mostly for "time shifting" of my favorite radio programs. I also use it to listen to books on tape (which I've dubbed over)... again it is a great product for this. The bookmarking feature is wonderful for keeping track where you're at in the book.

I now have the SonicStage version 2 and it is much better. Still not great... but much more useable.

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I use my MD player every day so, obviously, something is right about it. I actually own two!

But I also want to write a cranky email to this engineer at Sony signed off on the software! It is AMAZINGLY bad! SonicStage (1.5 is my version) is SO counter-intuitive that I just can't use it... and I'm pretty savvy with computer stuff. LITERALLY -I can't use it.

I can't figure out any way to just drag-and-drop songs to the player in the SonicStage software. Why in the world not? It's baffling.

Instead Sony makes you go through this ridiculous "check in check out" process. (or is it "check out check in"?) It makes no sense to me. Maybe if you grew up on right-brained computer games like Mario Brothers, you could just let go of the need for logic.

FORTUNATELY, you can get a plug-in for RealAudio which is better but still not that great. The SimpleBurner isn't too bad either -it's just limited to copying your CDs.

The Sony MD player is terrific at recording stuff off the radio for time-shifting. However, Sony won't let you transfer it back on to your computer for safe-keeping. The only way to do this is real time dubbing through your sound card. How FRUSTRATING! The MD could be one terrific tool for ripping your old LPs, or whatever, but Sony has made this impractical. This crippling of functions by Sony makes it useless for lots of people, I'm sure.

The compression and audio quality are terrific and it sounds great to my ears, even at the highest compression rates.

One terrific thing you can do with the MD is record off you favorite radio stations and then edit out the commercials and even move the songs around. This is so easy to do, that I do this while on my evening walks! You end up with a custom "best of" tape. But, then it's a pain-in-the-neck if you want to get that back on your computer.

The price is a deal for such a great piece of hardware and the MD disks are cheap, sturdy and hold a lot. I take mine on trips all over the world and even 5 MDs is plenty. I take my MD places that I would be nervous to take an IPod or some other higher-priced MP3 player. Also, battery life is great and it uses just normal AA's which you can buy anywhere -a big advantage for travel.

Even though it is marketed as "speedy" it doesn't seem that fast to me. I haven't' actually timed it, but I think you could burn an MP3 CD quite a bit faster.

So, if you want to time-shift NPR or Rush, it's a great little machine. I havne't seen anything around that can beat it. But I wouldn't recommend it for listening to MP3s.

If Sony had just written better software and hadn't crippled it, the MD player would be killer. But, it's good for some functions like time shifting.

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This is a great MiniDisc Recorder/Player, but I highly discourage people from running with it. It's quite big, and a little bulky, even though it does fit in a palm of somebody older than 13. It's pros definetly outweigh the cons. So heres my list of pros and cons.

Pros

Great SoftwareI dont see what the complaining is about. If you follow the directions you'll be done in less than 2 minutes!

Recording SpeedsReally nice if your in a hurry. You can burn approximately 20 songs a minute and 100 songs in 6 minutes.

Memory/Data in a MiniDiscAlthough the minidisc claims to be 74 minutes, you can alter the quality of the song (Lp4, Lp2) modes and gets incredible amounts of songs. In LP4 mode (66k) you can get nearly 5 hours of music (4 hours 59 minutes to be precise) and in Lp2 (132k) you can get approx. half of that. Although I said "Alter the quality) there is really no way you can tell the difference between standard and LP4. The only difference I have picked up is that you have to raise the volume a little bit.

Battery Life1AA battery can run for 56 hours continually (but its more if you turn it on and off) I've had my MiniDisc Player for 2 weeks now and I listen to it atleast 3/4 hours a day and still is at FULL battery.

Cons

Searching for songsSearching for songs often can be a pain, especially if you don't figure it out (READ THE MANUAL! IT REALLY WORKS)

There aren't many cons to this player.

Overall I would give this player a high rating of 4.5/5 stars. It's really good and I don't see what the complaining is about.

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Software will NOT allow you to write CD to MD more than three times.

Software will NOT allow you to write from MD to PC if the MD recording did not originate from that same PC.

Software will NOT allow you to write from MD to PC if the MD recording was made with a microphone, optical or analog line (from a hi-fi).

Software is horrible to use.

This software could have been great if it ALLOWED me to transfer microphone recordings from my MD to the PC. The three time transfer rule (you can only record a CD to MD three times) should also have been advertised.

Copyright restrictions do not apply to me as I own it my own music.

I am a songwriter & used the old MZR700PC to record rehearsals and interviews. I purchased the MZ N710 to help me manage these recordings I have collected over the past four years.

I have brought my old MD (MZR700PC) around the world with me a few times and it still works fine; I have no doubt that Sony make a quality product.

So: Hold onto your old MD, Net MD is only as good as the terrible software that controls it.

Dear Sony,

I have always considered your products to be at the front of technology and innovative design.

Having "upgraded" my minidisc recorder from the MZR700PC to the MZ N710 I am not so certain.

Does your company really feel that it will be able to compete with the iPOD?

I am certain that you can do better than this muck (SonicStage software) if you take a few days to read your criticism at:

(...)

Regards,

A concerned costumer.

This is truly a beautiful machine. On "normal" mode, you can fit 80 minutes on an 80 min minidisc. On LP2 it doubles (2 hr 40 minutes) and on LP4 it quadruples (5 hours). The quality is the same on all 3, so I don't know why anyone would even use normal or LP2, since LP4 holds so much. The recording features are VERY nice if you have a CD you want to copy (or off the radio, PC, or anything that has sound output) but aren't near your computer. The SonicStage software works well, but there are 2 problems. The first is that you can only copy your musc 3 times (but why do you need more than one song a minidisc???) You can still put the music back on the computer("check in") ONLY if you got the music from that computer ("check out"). It also comes with more software for quick burning that is unlimited. The other problem is that music that you copy from elsewhere can't go on your computer. However, it would be illegal to do that anyways. Also, Minidiscs are better than CDs because they have Groups. You can put as much or as little in groups (albums, artists, style, tempo, whatever you want) which make navigating easier. The battery life is also VERY nice. I listened to it the whole flight to Japan and back on one AA battery. My CD player would've taken 8 AA batteries. Also, when I was in Japan (Minidisc players are very popular) nobody had the recording option (they must get a seperate machine to make Minidiscs), which means ours are even better. However, this remote control is very basic. It's play/pause, stop, next, previous, and next and previous group, so if you're using it to navigate through your Minidiscs you get lost. The only bad thing about the player itself is that the battery compartment sticks out quite far. It isn't far enough to cause a probelm; it still fits in your pocket or palm or anywhere. Another bad thing is that it's quite pricey. You can get a decent CD player for $30-40, but this is over $100 more than that, it's worth it though.